Felix Holt - (illustrated)

George Eliot

Oct 2014 · 7 Novels of George Eliot Book 5 · Osmora Incorporated

About this ebook

Set during the time of the Reform Act of 1832, the story centres on an election contested by Harold Transome, a local landowner, in the "Radical cause" ("Radical" because Transome's version of "radicalism" isn't radical at all, but rather an application of the term to his politically stagnate lifestyle), contrary to his family's Tory traditions. Contrasting with the opportunism of Transome is the sincere, but opinionated, Radical Felix Holt. A subplot concerns the stepdaughter of a Dissenting minister who is the true heir to the Transome estate, but who is unaware of the fact. She becomes the object of the affections of both Harold Transome and Felix Holt.

this version contains original illustrations

About the author

Mary Ann Evans (22 November 1819 – 22 December 1880; alternatively "Mary Anne" or "Marian"), known by her pen name George Eliot, was an English novelist, journalist, translator and one of the leading writers of the Victorian era. She is the author of seven novels, including Adam Bede (1859), The Mill on the Floss (1860), Silas Marner (1861), Middlemarch (1871–72), and Daniel Deronda (1876), most of them set in provincial England and known for their realism and psychological insight.

She used a male pen name, she said, to ensure her works would be taken seriously. Female authors were published under their own names during Eliot's life, but she wanted to escape the stereotype of women only writing lighthearted romances. She also wished to have her fiction judged separately from her already extensive and widely known work as an editor and critic. An additional factor in her use of a pen name may have been a desire to shield her private life from public scrutiny and to prevent scandals attending her relationship with the married George Henry Lewes, with whom she lived for over 20 years.